Childhood Adversity & Trauma: Strategies for Promoting Health

Wednesdays 8:00 – 9:00AM

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are stressful or traumatic events that may result from violence, abuse, neglect, loss, disaster, and other emotionally harmful experiences.  Given the high prevalence of ACEs on Chicago’s South and West sides, and the serious impact that they have on lifelong health, primary care providers (PCPs) in these communities need to be equipped to approach their patients about and address issues of trauma. Through this series, ECHO-Chicago will train community-based primary care providers to assess and address ACEs and implement trauma-informed practices to improve overall well-being of adolescents living in Chicago through ECHO-Chicago’s innovative workforce development model for expanding primary care capacity in under-served communities. It will lead to a greater coordination of services in primary care in order to keep patients healthy and connected to healthcare when necessary, leading to improved patient experience and improved health outcomes.

Topics for Case-Based Learning and Discussion Include:

• Introduction to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
• Social Determinants of Health and Unmet Social Needs
• Intervention: Connecting with Community Resources
• Structural & Historical Factors of Childhood Adversity & Trauma
• Biological & Physiological Mechanism of Action of Childhood Adversity & Trauma
• Becoming Trauma Informed in Your Practice: Creating Safe Environments, Collaboration and Coping tools
• Provider Wellness
• Building Patient Resilience: Screening as a tool of compassion
• Interventions strengthening the therapeutic web: Parenting to Promote Family Resiliency
• Interventions strengthening the therapeutic web: Schools & Community
• Refering Patients for Evidence-Based therapeutic Interventions for exposure to Trauma